“Oh, he’s volunteering with the cleanup. I was just going to grab my gear and help.” Christopher brushed his hand through his tousled hair, leaving it in even more disarray. The edges of his eyes crinkled warmly when he smiled. The dark circles under them had been erased. After he lifted his rain gear from the coatrack, he paused at the door just long enough to ask us, “Want to come?”
I waited for my parents to answer, hoped that they would say yes. But Dad shook his head with a rueful smile and said, “Maybe later.”
“Dad, all those memoirs you read? About explorers? You’ve always said you wanted one big adventure.” I gestured around us, no longer caring that Christopher was right here, witnessing our family drama. “Well, there’s an adventure happening to you right now.”
It was as if Mom were experiencing an epiphany. She stood up, gazing down at Dad alone on the couch. “It’s true, Gregor. No matter what, you’ll always be my hero. I just wish you believed that.”
Dad’s jaw worked. Frustrated and unable to stay cooped up inside for another minute, I pocketed the camera and strode to the door, not caring that my shoelaces were still untied. “Wait, Christopher, I’ll go with you.”
What I didn’t expect to hear was Mom’s echo. “Me, too.”
Navigating the stone-paved Inca Trail, climbing thousands of uneven steps, traversing different ecological zones—those challenges were nothing compared to shoving our way through the frazzled crowd lined up at the train station. Apparently, the frustrated and scared tourists with their death grips on their luggage didn’t get the memo that the trains weren’t running and the tracks themselves were out of commission.
“Oh, there he is!” I said to Christopher, pointing down to Quattro on the train tracks, where he was clearing debris with a couple of other men and women.
“Where?” Christopher craned his neck.
“Two o’clock.”
“Wow, you got good eyes.”
More like a homing instinct where Quattro was concerned. I blushed when Mom nudged me meaningfully. But then Quattro himself glanced up and looked directly at us, as if his homing instinct for me was just as well developed.
“He’s had a hard time of it, losing his mom and all,” Christopher said to me with a sidelong glance while Quattro hopped over the embankment to make his way to us. As Quattro closed the distance, Christopher hurried to say in a lowered voice, “You’re good for him.”
What was I supposed to do with that revelatory piece of information? I had already let Quattro know my feelings, and if he wasn’t biting, I wasn’t baiting. I told myself again that I was content with being just friends with him. But then, a heavyset woman pushed me out of the way just as Quattro smiled at me, and I knew she wasn’t the sole reason why I was thrown off balance. He reached out for me before I stumbled. I could have kissed the portly woman.
“I thought you left,” he said, his hands still on my arms.
“The evacuation was canceled. So we came to help,” I told him.
“Cool.” Another grin, another flutter in my heart. I was such a goner for him. “Follow me,” Quattro said as he parted the crowd for us. I envied the easy way he carried himself through the platform.
“Wow, this is worse than a concert,” I said, glad to be free from the throng when we reached the edge of the tracks. I breathed in deeply.
“Worse than a mosh pit,” Quattro countered before he leaped down to the tracks. He held his arms up for me and said, “Jump.”
I had no doubt that Quattro would catch me, but I hadn’t counted on the exhilaration of being caught in his strong arms. Swooning. I never understood that word until this very moment. But I didn’t want to hope for something that would never be; I had spent way too much time doing that for Dom.
“Gotcha,” he said.
In more ways than you know.
Christopher called down to him, “Hey, what about me?”
“You’re on your own, Dad.”
We joined the volunteers, all wearing daypacks, none toting luggage, as they gathered around a familiar short and stocky man: Ruben. His eyes lit up at the sight of us. “You all came.”
“You’re still here!” I said to him. “I thought you left yesterday.”
“No, I told you I wasn’t leaving until you were all safe,” he answered.
Then Christopher explained, “Ruben stayed in our tent last night.”
“You should have stayed with us,” Mom protested now, as I said, “We had enough room!”
“I’m happier outside,” he said simply, understated as always.
Really, I should have known that Ruben would be at the center of any kind of relief effort. Here was a man who’d shown us nothing but quiet steadiness since the start of the trip, never drawing attention to himself, never needing to be the hero. He just was, always doing more than what was required. I didn’t have a single doubt that Ruben would stay until each and every one of us in his tour group had been safely evacuated, not because it was in his contract or because he had promised Stesha, but because it was the right thing to do.